UKC

Just thinking about an ultra lightweight cooking set up and am tempted by just using a titanium mug (something like the Alpkit MytiMug) as both a cooking pot and to drink from.

Not sure of how practical it is to drink from having just used it to boil water on the stove – any experiences/suggestions?

In reply to exiled_northerner:

Ti doesn't retain heat very well, so I find the cup doesn't retain heat and quickly cools to the temp of the drink - so yes can drink without loosing skin off your lips.

Lack of a lid is however an issue as it increases boiling time, plus the drink goes cold fairly quickly as the cup doesn't offer any insulation or heat retention properties.

In reply to exiled_northerner:

Yup, a titanium pot will lose heat very quickly so easy to drink from.

In reply to exiled_northerner:
I cook in the field on a micro stove, ti mug and I use a jetboil canister stand to balance it.

The lids of ti pots often aren't a great fit so I found that the lid from a jetboil fits perfectly.

Only enough room for say one boil in the bag though. And awful performance in the wind. Probably quite wasteful on gas. You can add a primus clip on windshield but by this time you're closing the gap on a light jetboil (eg zip or Sol ti).

Gsi do a set called the halulite which is Alu but very light and comes with a cozy and a better lid - almost worth it!

In reply to exiled_northerner:

I use a Myti mug for cooking and drinking from when bike trekking .
I have the Myti mug 650 and the Myti pot 900.

I find that unlike of the insulated mugs I can actually drink my tea or coffee after a few minutes of letting it cool. Those insulated things still burn the skin off my mouth if not left for ages to cool enough.

My only gripe with the Myti mug 650 is that when finishing off a drink the diameter of the mug is a little to wide for my mouth and I ( if not careful ) end up pouring the tea down my front. Repeated practice gets around this after a while.




OM

In reply to exiled_northerner:

I have a myti mug, which I use as a stove when backpacking. It has a lid, so functions exactly as a stove.
Depending on which way the wind is blowing, the handles can get very hot, so use a glove or some such to pick it up.
Contrary to what others have said, I find it takes ages to cool down enough to drink from - far longer than a plastic mug.
Only down side is that you have to finish your drink before you can start cooking your dinner (and vice versa).

In reply to Jenny C:

Both the Alpkit MytiMug and the MSR equivalent have lids.

Thanks for the comments guys. Looks like I'm going to bite the bullet and just suck it up and see how it works for me.

Planning on using it first off on a single night bikepacking trip and am going to keep it simple -- freeze dried meal, so only need to boil water and pour into pouch and then re-boil some more for a brew.

Am initially going to use it on a pocket rocket, but the might go for broke in the lightweight stakes and go for a mini meths burner!! Everyone who's into Bikepacking was raving about them at the Alpkit Big Shake Out at the weekend!

Any experiences here?

In reply to exiled_northerner:

I've the MyTiMug (or however the capitalisation goes) 650 and use it with a Vango micro stove - basically an equivalent to the Alpkit Kraku, pocket rocket and similar stoves.

General mode of operation is just to boil water in it rather than try and make anything fancy. Anything needing "cooking" are essentially boil in the bag type foods. Saves on washing up and in deciding whether to have a brew or cook food first. You can use either commercial freeze dried meals or make your own, plenty of books/websites for the latter.

A Coleman 100g gas cylinder will go inside the mug plus you can fit the stove, lighter and quite a bit more in as well (worth having something soft like tea bags you can stuff in to stop the rattling).

I've found that you do need something to hold the handles when removing from the stove, a buff or similar will do. Usually the mug itself is cool enough to drink from within a minute or two of removing it from the stove. Could be worth making a little insulated jacket for it so that it doesn't cool down too much.

I've made one of those meths burners from a beer can but not used it in anger so can't comment on how efficient or otherwise it is. Since that was my first effort at making one, it might not be quite right! Worth having a go at making one yourself.

In reply to Bob:

Here's a few things to inspire people (perhaps)...

http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/gear-features/make-your-own-meths-burner/6227....
though I generally use the version I posted here:
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/forum/gear/the-caldera-clone/22357-12.html

Huge thread on conic stoves, with lots of examples if you have the patience to look through the 35 or so pages; maybe skip to around page 10:
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/forum/gear/the-caldera-clone/22357.html
An example of an entire cook kit using such a cone and MyTiMug:
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/gallery/image.asp?sp=&v=1&uabn=2925&am...

In reply to captain paranoia:

I like the shim in steps 24-26 from the first link: it was quite awkward to marry the two halves without one

I must have another go at making one now that I know the pitfalls and bits that can trip you up. Hmmm, beer!

In reply to Onion magnet:





I don't want to ask if you're got around it by forming your lips into the right shape make sure it all goes into your mouth...how do you mean?

Edit: Oh! You mean like drinking out of a big pan can be tricky.

In reply to exiled_northerner:

I have a Lifeventure mug and ombine it with an Esbit solid fuel stove on mountain marathons. Tinfoil lid saves weight.

In reply to exiled_northerner:

I'll echo some of the comments above. I use the alpkit 650 mug (or whatever its predecessor was) with a pocket rocket and a wee 100 gas canister for overnighters / short trips.
I find that it is ideal for quick brews and meals that need little cooking (cous cous and the like). The lid works well and the whole package is pretty light, minus gas it comes in at sub 150g. I tend not to burn myself drinking out of it and it keeps my hands warm on colder camps. The mug also fits round a nalgene bottle perfectly if I'm trying to save some space.
For longer trips, winter camps (where I'd prefer an external hose on my stove so I can keep the canister off the ground) or if I'm planning to cook proper meals then I'd break out a bigger cook kit.
I do rate titanium and at alpkit prices it's worth a punt. I'd probably buy the 950 size nowadays, in fact I keep having to stop myself!

In reply to angry pirate:


There's a sale on https://www.alpkit.com/products/mytipot

In reply to Timmd:



Yeah just like drinking out of a big pan or the wide mouth nalgene bottles I have issues with them too !

OM

In reply to Onion magnet:


Break the bank and invest in one of the:

http://www.facewest.co.uk/Nalgene-Easy-Sipper.html

In reply to exiled_northerner:

I tried this a few years ago but gave up after a while. I found that the greater depth of the cooking vessel resulted in burned food far more often than with a real saucepan, and it was generally more awkward to use. YMMV but I greatly prefer a relatively shallow but broad saucepan for cooking with.

If you really want to go lightweight, try stoveless! It's a practical option for summer use.

In reply to Only a hill:

I only use mine for boiling water to rehydrate freeze dried meals. I don't think it would work too well for cooking directly, for the reasons you mention.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Yep, it works fine if you just boil water, and it's probably the most compact setup around.

In reply to Only a hill:

This is more for clarification as I suspect you know this.

It's a slightly different way of thinking really. Traditional camp cooking is basically a cut down version of cooking at home: make the meal in a pan or pans; transfer to plate; eat off plate; clean up. Using the mytimug as your "pot" isn't like that, your actual cooking pot, and plate, is the bag in which the dried food is carried, so the sequence is: heat water in mug; pour hot water in to food bag; let it rehydrate; eat; pack bag away.

If you happen to be camping in bear country then the latter makes a lot of sense as you aren't creating lots of attractive smells for the bears. In the UK, unless there are some particularly delinquent badgers around, we don't have that problem but it is a much cleaner way of cooking especially if you are on the move rather than pitched up for a couple of days.

The mytimug 650 is just big enough for two of us when bikepacking, with an extra cup we can make a brew for us both that's about the right volume for it not to have gone cold by the time you get to the end of it. Making a meal is hardly any harder. If I was riding alone then the smaller 400ml mug would be more than adequate but I'd consider using a meths burner stove rather than a gas stove so things would be even lighter and more compact.

In reply to Bob:
Obviously if you're using dehydrated food then the process you describe is what happens, and for that setup then a MyTiMug works fine (as I've stated above). But not everyone uses pre-prepared dehydrated backpacking rations, which are very expensive. 75% of the time I'll use Pasta-n-Sauce or equivalent cheap and cheerful supermarket dried food – which you have to cook in a cooking vessel.

In reply to Only a hill:


Pot noodles?

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

To be more precise, I meant pre-prepared dehydrated backpacking rations *marketed* as backpacking rations

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

'Mug shots' are better - much more compact. You need two for a decent meal though.

In reply to Only a hill:

The commercial ones certainly are expensive though as I (think) I stated earlier you can make your own quite easily: put a portion of whatever you want to dry on a roasting tray; weigh it; put in an oven that is set to 50C or so; let it dry out; weigh again. The difference between the two weights is how much water you need to add to rehydrate it. Put in to a "boil in the bag", err, bag and mark it with the contents and amount of water needed then store.

TBH I think we are arguing the same point

I use a number of different Ti mugs/pans according to the trip, including the MyTiMug 650. I always use a windscreen - makes the whole set up much more fuel efficient. I think the cones are the best (see Captain Paranoia above), but the standard upright ones also make a big difference. Check out Speedster Stoves too, as they do a combined pot stand and windscreen for the MyTiMug 650.
I reckon this mug is a great size for solo.

In reply to exiled_northerner:

there seem to be a lot of titanium 'mugs' on here, surely the cost/weight ratio isnt worth it compared to aluminium

In reply to Pesda potato:

Genuine question: where can I get an aluminium mug with lid that can also serve as a stove?

In reply to Simon Caldwell:
As a stove?

Do you mean as a pot for a stove?

There are hundreds - do you need a heat exchanger or not? Is weight priority? What are you cooking? For one or two or more people?

For one person:

http://www.gsioutdoors.com/halulite-minimalist.html

In reply to Simon Caldwell:


Do MSR do one? They seem to have a range of stuff in several materials, I've not checked though.

In reply to neuromancer:

Yes I meant as pot for a stove. And I should have been clearer, I also meant something that was cheaper than a titanium version, the one you linked to is more (a lot more once you add in postage) as well as a lot heavier.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Not a LOT heavier - and the lid and cozy are very well put together and worthwhile (90% of the lids for titanium pots are inadequate if you want to put things in close to the brim as they just sit on top rather than fit).

Cheaper than the £21 alpkit pot?

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/aluminium-mug-for-camping-or-hiking-hiking-and-c...

In reply to neuromancer:

That's more like it! Plastic handles as well by the look of it to make it easier to pick up.
Shame it's not twice the size and with a lid

In reply to Simon Caldwell:
http://www.decathlon.co.uk/1-person-aluminium-cookset-id_8308740.html

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/1-person-hiking-cook-set-hiking-and-camping-pots...

But by the time you've gone up in size, made it cheap aluminium, added a lid e.t.c e.t.c

Why not just buy a jetboil?

The whole point of using a ti mug and micro stove is a) size and b) weight. I'd argue it's even c) cheap (alpkit kraku plus mytimug is like £40) but if you must penny pinch then i'm sure there are better places to save money or functionality.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

So you want an aluminium MyTiMug? Let's call it a MyAlMug then

Somewhere around 400ml seems to be the minimum for a usable size for solo use

In reply to Bob:

I don't, I'm more than happy with my Mytimug and pocket rocket
I was just interested in the idea that there's a cheaper aluminium equivalent.

In reply to Bob:

I struggle to get a single boil in the bag in anything smaller than a 600ml, which makes it about as small as I can go.

Also, any smaller than that is pointless as you can no longer fit all of the ancillaries eg gas stove pot stand lighter/fire steel inside.